My Person of the Year: Nuri al-Maliki

PM Nuri al-Maliki responded to Senator Carl Levin's (D-Michigan) call for him to be unseated, and Bush's failure to support him on Tuesday by unwisely getting hot under the collar and saying he can find other friends in the world to support his endeavor. I predicted that Levin's unwise and inappropriate comment (in a conference call with Tel Aviv!-- Americans have no clue about Middle Eastern politics) would elicit an angry response. Levin managed to make it look as though he were ordered by the Israeli government to see al-Maliki gotten rid of because he was making economic deals with Syria (thus strengthening the latter). I underline that such an interpretation is unfounded, but that is how many in the region see it. Levin is usually sure-footed and careful on Middle East issues, including especially Iraq, so I can't understand why he wants to appoint himself secretary of state all of a sudden. (Source: Informed Comment)

Consider the situation in Iraq. Turkey, a nation with which Iraq is not at war, is in the process of bombing the Kurds in the northern region where Iran, Iraq and Turkey share a border; the Green Zone is deathly violent, volatile and unstable, arguably in the midst of a veritable civil war; the Pentagon, along with its warmongering Congressional mouthpieces and Washington lobbyists, appears to be attempting to precipitate a war with Iran, yet another a country with which the Iraqi government is not at war, with a federal court ruling that Iran had supported Hezbollah in the 1980s; the British are easing out of Basra; Nuri al-Maliki has lost the support of his Sunni bloc in parliament and of the Mahdi Army, his most powerful bloc and the most potent counterweight to the Iraqi Sunni Insurgency. Moreover, not only is Washington in the form of a lobbying firm supporting Ayad Allawi, trying to oust Maliki politically by compromising his parliamentary support, it's even worse.

Leading a nation like Iraq, now, would not be an enviable task, let alone, considering the almost arbitrary lethality of Blackwater, a safe one, if you were Iraqi. Now consider that in lieu of all of this, Washington has suddenly turned against you, supporting your political opposition, possibly even according to either media reports or NIE projections, planning to assassinate you, as they did Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam.

No, your name is not Saddam Hussein. It's Nuri al-Maliki. You are courageous amid the ship of fools and cowards that invaded your country, refuse to depart and are now attemtping to start wars with other countries. No they are not members of Hezbollah or al-Qaeda or Fatah. They are " Washington elites."

You are the only thing that keeps Iraq from going Titanic or Volganeft.

You are my man of 2007.

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Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin were two of several US politicians who called for him to be removed from office but he hit back and said the Democrat senators saying that they were acting as if Iraq was "their property" and that they should "come to their senses" and "respect democracy".

In August, 2007, CNN reported that the firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers had "begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki." The network described BGR as a "powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House."CNN also mentioned that Ayad Allawi is both al-Maliki's rival and BGR's client, although it did not assert that Allawi had hired BGR to undermine al-Maliki.

The lobbying firm boasts the services of two onetime foreign policy hands of President Bush: Ambassador Robert Blackwill, the former Deputy National Security Adviser, and Philip Zelikow, former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Ingrid Henick, a vice president for Barbour Griffith & Rogers, confirmed to CNN the firm has signed a contract to "provide strategic counsel for and on behalf of Dr. Allawi."

Henick refused to comment on why such a prominent Republican firm would work to hurt al-Maliki, whom President Bush has repeatedly backed as the best hope for forging political reconciliation in Iraq.

Pressed on why allies of the White House would be contradicting the president so publicly, the senior administration official said of the lobbyists, "They're making a lot of money."

Wow- remember when people denied that the Iraqi government was a 'puppet for the U.S.'? Now you have a former Prime Minister, chosen by the White House, paying a U.S. PR Firm to lobby the U.S. Congress and White House and undermine the current PM. This is despicable.

Also, Allawi-for-iraq.com is owned by Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Inc , according to WHOIS records.

Very nice journalism here from CNN. Keep it coming.